Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Michael Koppelman
I seems to me that we are not very good at disagreeing. You see this come up over and over. The basis is this notion that disagreement is a form of war and that winning is what matters. War makes things so easy because they are black and white: if we don't kill them they'll kill us. Not a lot of reason to debate in such a context. However, most disagreement is not war and to treat it as such turns potential allies into enemies and cripples the healthy process of intellectual debate.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
http://www.lolife.com/thoughts.html
ReplyDeleteMichael Koppelman is an American record producer and recording engineer. He worked with the artist Prince from 1989 to 1992 on his albums Graffiti Bridge, Diamonds and Pearls and Love Symbol.
ReplyDeleteHe also recorded or produced records for Ingrid Chavez, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, Frente!, Basehead, and Moxy Früvous.
He is currently studying astronomy at the University of Minnesota and was featured in the PBS television documentary Seeing in the Dark. He is part of the Slacker Astronomy blog and podcast team.
I'm into amateur astronomy. It's a hobby that gives me immense enjoyment. An interesting dichotomy presents itself as one gets more immersed in the universe. On the one hand, you have the world around us -- our jobs, cars, relationships, and all of that other fun stuff. On the other you have a universe that appears to go on without end, with billions of stars, galaxies, nebulas, quasars, and all sorts of interesting phenomena. One the one hand, you have our real world, and on the other you have the *real* real world. Because in the context of the universe, we barely exist. Our planet is tiny and barely visible from our own outer solar system. The earth is a collection of heavy elements that coalesced from the remnants of a supernova millions of years ago. Whether we achieve peace on earth or nuke ourselves into oblivion, the universe goes on unaffected. No matter how long you live, what great works you achieve, no matter how deep you love or hate, it is all irrelevant in the eyes of the universe. The earth will be gone in a few billion years no matter what we do, as the sun slowly exhausts its nuclear potential.
ReplyDeleteSome might find that depressing. I do not. I love the "real world" of the universe around us. I am fascinated by the slow (in our terms) evolution of interstellar matter -- of the cosmic dance that combines, expands, contracts and gives and takes life. The true nature of the universe is of a scale that is impossible to truly grasp in the human mind. Time scales are measured in billions of years. Distances are measured in light years -- a unit equal to roughly 5,865,700,000,000 miles. The next nearest star to ours is over 4 times that far away. The nearest galaxy is several billion times farther away. The universe is huge and ancient and is the truest miracle of the Great Spirit. I do not feel diminished by this fact, I feel exalted. The matter in my body right now has existed since the beginning of time, and will continue to exist until the end of time. I have been stars, air, iron, and water. I am a child of the universe.